Wodwo Poem by Roy Ballard

Such things are shy and hard to see but sometimes,
like a nymph caught washing her hair,
he forgets to look over his shoulder
and fails to see you, frozen, standing there.
In shaded summer beneath weighty boughs,
he sees you standing and returns your stare,
across his carpet of dog's mercury,
or else star-scattered wood anemones
or yellow celendines or bright bluebells,
or ramsons with their untamed garlic smells.
The vision fades into the summer green,
the autumn russet, winter's bony trees...
You strain your eyes to fix what you have seen
for eyes can trick with anything they please.
There's only shadows and a twisted bough.
It's nothing. Yet the wood feels empty now.